Ed Zacharias
'Ed Zacharias '''is the leader of Ed Zacharias's Cartel and antagonist in ''Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. He controlled about half of the drug trade in Los Angeles along with the Romero Brothers Cartel. He was portrayed by actor Perry Lopez. History Early Life Ed Zacharias grew up in New York's South Bronx tenements and started running errands for the Mafia when he was 12. He graduated to numbers a few years later and became an associate for the Mafia and commited his first murder when he was 19. Against Paul Kersey Ed Zacharias controlled almost half of the drug trade in Los Angeles along with Jack Romero and Tony Romero who his organization was at peace with. As the Fake Nathan White tried to control alone the entire drug trade in Los Angeles, he enlisted the help of Paul Kersey under the false impression that he was out for revenge against the drug lords. Ed Zacharias was having a lavish birthday party at his mansion where the Romero Brothers were invited. Paul disguised himself and a butler and got more information about Ed Zahcarias's organization by bugging Zacharias's phone lines. As Paul attacked Ed Zacharias's and the Romero Brothers's operations it looked more and more like they were trying to set each other up. As the Romero Brothers wondered who was behind the attacks, Ed Zacharias recruited the help of corrupt police officer Det. Phil Nozaki after Paul killed the Romeros's top hitman, Frank Bauggs. Ed Zacharias told Phil to kill Paul, but Phil ended up getting killed himself. Before a war could start, Ed Zacharias arranged a meeting to be set up with the Romero Brothers. At the meeting, Ed Zacharias tried to explain that someone else was trying to set them up. Before any agreement could be reached, Paul made it seem like each side was trying to set the other up and shot at them with a sniper rifle. After the shootout between Ed Zacharias's men and the Romeo Brothers's men stopped, Paul walked over to Ed Zacharias and showed him a picture of his girlfriend's daughter, Erica Sheldon, who had died form a cocaine overdose. Paul then kills Ed Zacharias with a rifle shot to the chest. Personality Having been involved with criminality since his early days, Ed Zacharias was a charming and charismatic drug lord who appreciated a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle, as seen in his lavish birthday party full of expensive drinks, elegant clothing, scantily-clad women, huge swimming pool, tennis playgrounds and other joys money can buy. On the other side, he could be downright cold, violent and cruel when conducting his shady business, as seen when he openly killed his colleague Vince Montono by stabbing him in the chest with a screwdriver upon discovering that Montono stole a big shipment of coccaine from the cartel's Colombian connection. He was also very arrogant and despicable when addressing to those he dislikes, a notable example being Tony Romero, whom Zacharias always treated with complete disdain and inferiority in comparison to the respectful and somewhat amiable treatment he gave to Tony's older brother, Jack. Zacharias seemed to be more intelligent and perceptive than the Romeros, as he spotted something fishy when Paul Kersey started to kill the top operators of both cartels in order to turn them against each other, something the Romeros did not seem to figure out. Since his cartel employed fear and intimidation to keep their operations, Zacharias mostly dressed with elegant suits and neckties, just as his top henchmen did. He was also a cowardly when outpowered, prefering to flee rather than fight, as shown when he ran away in panic as Tony Romero tried to kill him during the oil rig shootout with the opposite gang. Zacharias did not hesitate to kill others and destroy their lives and families in order to easily gain huge sums of dirty money from trafficking his lethal drugs. All these evil acts led him and his whole organisation to be completely destroyed by Paul Kersey. Category:Characters Category:Antagonists Category:Drug Dealers Category:Deceased